Building technology in the last 20 years or so has facilitated the design of architecturally appealing and dramatic, yet functional, office buildings. A major advance over the past 20 years has been the guarantee of a controlled climate in new buildings through the use of self-contained heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, generally referred to as HVAC systems.
Such advances in office building climate control, however, have not occurred without resultant problems. While the control of the quality of air within buildings limits contact of its occupants with external pollutants, it does place the occupants within the building at risk for potential airborne infectious agents that may be efficiently spread by the HVAC system.
Recently, there has been an outbreak in certain buildings around the United States of common diseases and infections contracted by occupants of these buildings, with the problems being called the "sick building syndrome." The sick building syndrome is typically taken to describe an office building in which complaints of ill health by its occupants are more common than might reasonably be expected to occur in such building occupant population. The affected buildings are commonly those office buildings that have full building air conditioning.
Symptoms exhibited by the occupants in such sick buildings frequently include nasal, eye and mucous membrane symptoms with lethargy, dry skin, headaches and nausea. Several causes have been postulated for such symptoms, and despite much research, no satisfactory explanation of the sick building syndrome has been identified. The postulated causes include formaldehyde from ceiling and wall insulation, furniture and carpet adhesives, cigarette smoke, excess of airborne particles, excess carbon dioxide, bacterial in the air from contamination of the humidifiers in the HVAC system and poor circulation of air through the HVAC system of the building.
There exists a need to treat the HVAC systems of office buildings with an antimicrobial composition to address the sick building syndrome and especially the duct work of such systems. However, to date no suitable antimicrobial composition have been developed that will adhere to the interior of the metal, fiberglass and plastic ducts of HVAC systems.
Although copper-8-quinolinolate is known for use as a fungicide in paints, sealers, lacquers and varnishes, it is not known as an antimicrobial agent in general, or for use in an antimicrobial mixture used to coat ductwork. An antimicrobial mixture has now been developed that contains copper-8-quinolinolate and that can be applied to air passageways in general, and more specifically to metal, fiberglass or plastic ductwork and other metal and plastic media. Buildings in which the air passageways and other ductwork are treated with the antimicrobial mixture of the invention exhibit a lessening in the sick building syndrome.